Board & Remuneration Committee advice

Remuneration Committees sit at the apex of a set of critical governance and operational processes. 3XO provides experienced, commercial and independent advice.

Our HR advisors have decades of experience in advising Boards and Remuneration Committees. At 3XO, we have brought together a team of highly regarded independent external advisors and leading professionals with practical in-house experience. This means we can combine deep technical reward skills with the strong practical perspective needed to implement successfully.

Here are a few of the ways we support Boards and Remuneration Committees:

Remuneration strategy support. You may already be supported with your regular remuneration discussions. We can offer a fresh perspective, either independently of or to complement your existing support.
Project execution and advice. Sometimes it is helpful to pull in additional expertise to deliver against specific projects. This might be a matter of preserving independence, enlarging capacity or tapping into specialist experience. Projects include short and long-term incentive design; benefits strategy; Board remuneration review; reward communications support; sensitive projects, including challenging pay discussions for joiners and leavers; diversity and inclusion reward advice, including advice on supporting analysis; and union pay negotiations support.
Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG). A hugely topical area and important for Boards to form a clear and practical approach, both as part of the wider reward agenda and when considering ESG links to the reward of the executive team.
Full service Financial Services Remuneration Committee support. In collaboration with leading providers of benchmarking data, we are happy to support small and medium sized organisations in the FS sector with independent Remuneration Committee support including support with remuneration regulatory compliance.
SME Board support. We enjoy working with SMEs to put in place efficient and effective decision making on remuneration matters. Our focus on delivery of outcomes and practicality works well in this environment.

Our approach

3XO Partners, Principals and Associates have both consulting and in-house HR experience. This means we have a natural bias in our approach:

Specialist expertise rather than generalist HR – our advisory team is made up of highly regarded HR and reward professionals with experience of supporting Boards, Remcos and senior teams in the Financial Services sector across the globe.

Practical delivery rather than theoretical models – our advisory team is made up of HR leaders and managers who have a track record of successful implementation.

Working in multi-disciplinary teams where we seek to augment the skills and experience of others, including clients, rather than duplicate – our advisory team is focused on building long lasting relationships to deliver results, only using our people or other external specialists where necessary.

At 3XO, we work collaboratively with our clients to develop solutions that work in practice, making best use of our expertise as well as the knowledge of existing teams and other external advisors.

Our team

Every member of the 3XO team has worked closely with Boards, Remuneration Committees and senior teams providing HR strategic and regulatory support and advice as well as supporting successful implementation.

\"\" — Mike Aldred, Partner
*mike.aldred@3xo.co.uk*

Mike has 25 years of HR advisory and leadership experience. He held HR Director roles in financial services from 2005 to 2021, including at Barclays Bank and Standard Chartered. Prior to that he spent eight years in professional services as a Board advisor at PwC, working across industries.

In recent years Mike has worked across a range of sectors and clients including start-ups, professional services, education, public sector, property, entertainment and financial services.

Mike has a doctorate in Mathematics, is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and is an associate of the Pensions Management Institute. He is Chair of the School Teachers’ Review Body.

\"\" — Rupert McNeil, Partner
*rupert.mcneil@3xo.co.uk*

Rupert is the Chair of 3XO. He was previously the UK’s Government Chief People Officer (2016 to 2022), and prior to that Group HR Director of Lloyds Banking Group and held senior HR roles at Aviva and Barclays.

Rupert started his career at the CBI in 1989. He joined Arthur Andersen in 1995, becoming a Partner in 2001 and joining Deloitte as a Partner in 2002. He is Chair of the People Committee of the Haberdashers’ Academies Trust South and a member of the Chartered Management Institute’s Board of Companions. He is a Companion of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD), and is a Fellow of CIMA and a Chartered Global Management Accountant.

\"\" — Tom Gosling, Principal *tom.gosling@3xo.co.uk*

Tom has 20+ years of experience as a board adviser. Most recently he was a senior Partner at PwC where he established and led the firm’s executive pay practice.

Tom is an Executive Fellow in the Department of Finance and the Leadership Institute at LBS and holds the same title at the European Corporate Governance Institute. He has authored a number of reports on executive pay including: a review of the academic research evidence on effective pay design; an academic survey study on how boards and investors set CEO pay; and has written extensively on the linkage of pay to ESG targets both at executive level and more widely through the organisation in support of ESG strategy. Tom is available to work with 3xo clients on specific projects in executive remuneration and will be providing support and guidance to other members of our team.

\"\" — Julie Elder, Partner *julie.elder@3xo.co.uk*

Julie has extensive experience within Reward and Performance and Employee Relations, most notably at Barclays Bank and the London Stock Exchange. She has held senior HR leadership roles within financial services. Her broad experience includes working within retail, corporate, private and premier banking businesses in the UK, Europe, Africa and Caribbean as well as supporting subsidiary and main Boards and Remcos.

A founding Partner of 3XO, Julie\’s current focus is supporting clients, particularly SMEs from across wide variety of sectors, to develop and implement projects in the area of reward and performance.

\"\" — Cathy Macpherson, Associate *cathy.macpherson@3xo.co.uk*

Cathy has 16 years HR and reward experience in financial and professional services, including at PwC, Hay Group, Barclays Bank and Santander. Her experience includes the design and implementation of pay and grading systems, job evaluation, salary reviews, bonus schemes, senior executive compensation and HR reporting.

Cathy\’s work for 3Xo encompasses a wide range of clients and HR and reward activity, particularly supporting clients to efficiently and effectively operationalise strategic plans and designs.